WITH ALL OF the tests and the wait for a psychiatric evaluation and then the questions from the police, Inna’s stay at the hospital lasted well into the evening following her “incident.” So many people seemed to need to take a look at her that she was almost surprised when she was released—without a hospital admission or arrest.
When Inna was ready to leave the hospital, there were too many people waiting for her—her parents, her brother and sister-in-law, her father’s associate. Now they invaded her apartment, hovered over her, offered their sympathies, inspected her.
They knew, she thought, tasting bile. They all knew what had happened to her, what she might have done. They probably even knew she didn’t have any underwear beneath the scrubs the hospital had given her to wear home.
She didn’t want sympathy. Nothing would comfort her. Nothing made any sense, least of all the crowd that had gathered to see her home.
“Go home,” she told them all. “I’m fine. I just want to be alone.” She wasn’t fine. She might never be fine. But her misery didn’t need any company.
Ribbons of anxiety, tautly strung from wrist to wrist, cinched tighter, bunching the muscles in her shoulders and neck. All she wanted was her next dose of anti-anxiety medication and a good long sleep.
She went into her bathroom and pulled the amber bottle from her medicine cabinet. Funny, there was only one pill left. She thought there had been more. Had someone stolen her pills? She shook off the silly thought. She was merely jittery, enervated by last night’s terrible events, her usual anxiety skittering on the edge of paranoia. Fifteen minutes, she told herself. In fifteen minutes, the medicine would work its magic and she would feel fine, able to cope.
Inna filled the cup of water at the sink and swallowed the pill. It stuck in her throat. The tablet seemed somehow larger than she remembered, and she struggled to choke it down. She resented her dependence on the pills.
She splashed water on her face and studied her reflection in the mirror. The stress of the day had left its mark; dark smudges under her eyes and a wrinkle across her forehead, no color in her cheeks, no sparkle in her eyes. She had left her apartment feeling beautiful and confident in her bold red dress. Now, she felt old. She braced her hands against the white basin of the sink and bowed her head. Her hair formed a thick curtain around her face, and she wanted to pull it closed, hide, shut everything out.
When she had finally had her interview with the police, they had been frustrated by her lack of memory, and they had repeated and repeated questions as if in the hopes of tripping her up or getting a different story. They had pounded on her nerves until the small glue holding her together broke and crumbled, and she had started to cry. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if I killed him. I don’t remember anything.”
The doctor had intervened, had pulled the detectives aside, likely had explained to them what he had to her about the drug he had found in her blood. When they returned, their tone was different, softer and more careful, as if they had decided she was also a victim or that she was too fragile and might crack under more strain.
Then the questions had shifted. Did she have any enemies? Was there anyone who might want to hurt her—a jilted boyfriend, for example? How often did she go to Troika? How well did she and her brother get along? Did she know Jack, the other owner of the club? Were they involved in dealing drugs?
The questions sat uneasily with her, especially now with her family, her brother included, camped out in her living room. The direction of the questions was clear: How could this have happened to her at her own brother’s nightclub?
Her thoughts circled and spun around that question. There was an implication hidden there; that Jack or Aleksei might have targeted her or caused this to happen, but neither had even been there. Jack had been at home with his wife and children, and Aleksei had been changing a flat tire somewhere on the Belt Parkway. Inna and Aleksei might not get along as well as Inna wished, but she couldn’t imagine that her brother would ever hurt her. Not like this.
Inna felt like a rubber band pulled so tight it might snap. She could hear her father’s voice rising in the living room, his frustration directed at Aleksei, demanding to know how he could let such a thing happen at his club.
“You can’t blame Aleksei. He wasn’t even there,” Maya said, but Aleksei, Inna noticed, did not participate in his own defense. “Inna brought this on herself. If you have to blame someone, blame her.”
The recrimination was no less than what Inna had told herself, but her mother’s biting tone gave it more force. She wanted the earth to open up and swallow her.
“It’s not Inna’s fault,” Katya said.
“She went to the club looking like a prostitute, and she got treated like one,” Maya said.
“She was raped!” Katya said.
“We don’t know that,” Maya said. “We don’t know what happened. She claims she doesn’t remember. Isn’t that convenient?”
“She can’t remember because she was drugged,” Katya answered. Katya, usually the family diplomat, wasn’t the type to pick a fight, but she also didn’t back away from the ones she thought needed to be fought. Inna wondered now at her sister-in-law’s defense of her. Could she be right? Was Inna’s anger focused in the wrong place?
Inna forced herself to return to the living room and face her family, but they were so intent on arguing about her that no one seemed to notice her return, save Mikhail, who edged around the room, coming toward her. She wished he would stay away. He made her nervous, although she couldn’t say why.
“She asked for it,” Maya said viciously.
Inna knew her mother’s vitriol wasn’t really aimed at Katya. The two might fight tonight, but they would be friends again tomorrow, despite the snip in Maya’s tone. Katya didn’t hold grudges, and Maya adored Katya, as if she were a special gift that Maya had never expected to receive, the daughter she had always wanted.
Katya looked more her mother’s daughter than Inna did. They had the same coloring—light eyes, although Katya’s were green rather than blue, creamy complexions, and thick blond hair. Maya was more delicate, Katya more curvaceous, but they both had classic hourglass figures. They could easily pass for mother and daughter, while Inna hardly resembled her mother. Dark-haired and dark-eyed with a slight olive tinge to her skin, she had none of her mother’s porcelain qualities. Her eyes weren’t round. They were almond-shaped. Aleksei used to tell her she was adopted, and she might have believed him had she not had the same high cheekbones and sharp nose as her brother and father.
Inna rubbed at the ache in her chest. She wasn’t jealous of Katya. She just wished she could at least have a small portion of her own mother’s love.
“You go too far!” Papa bellowed at Mama. His voice seemed to come from far away. The scene took on a hazy quality. Inna blinked her eyes, but couldn’t quite bring everyone into focus. She swayed and bumped against the wall behind her.
Mikhail put his arm around her. His breath tickled her ear. “How are you holding up?”
Normally, she would have shied away from him, gone to lengths to avoid him. Now she melted toward him. The muscles that had been so tight before now felt loose, almost slack. A glowing sense of well-being washed over her, warm and soft. “I’m sleepy,” she said. Her voice sounded thick to her own ears.
“Inna’s tired. We should all go so she can rest,” Mikhail said, surprisingly solicitous. Maybe he wasn’t so bad, she thought foggily, as he ushered everyone to the door.
Katya caught her by the shoulders, and Inna felt wobbly in her grasp. “I’m so sorry this happened to you,” she said, “and I keep thinking if only we’d arrived earlier, we would have stopped it.”
“It’s not your fault,” Inna said, and the words floated out of her. She could almost see the bubble around them. She touched Katya’s cheek.
Katya embraced Inna in a tight hold. “Let me know if you need anything. I can imagine how terrible this has all been.”
Inna had never confided to anyone, except Dr. Shiffman, about what had happened that terrible night in college. She had hidden her shame to avoid her parents’ disappointment, the disapproval that now telegraphed off of Maya in thick waves. Katya couldn’t possibly imagine what it was like to carry this burden, to worry that her family might discover yet another reason to find her wanting, to crave their love while knowing deep down that she didn’t truly deserve it.
None of that was important right now. Any anger or ugly thoughts bounced in her brain with little effect. The magic pill was making that all not matter so much. It was as though there were a shield around her and nothing bad could touch her. She even felt herself smiling. “I’m going to be fine,” she said. “Don’t worry about me.”
It was the last thing she remembered that night.